If it offers any solace, though, there are tons of busy editors and content managers around the Internet who deal with huge amounts of email traffic and content planning every single day and—somehow—manage to stay on top of it all.

If you want to rehash your productivity plan and take your editorial efficiency to the next level, here are a few tips from a few very busy content editors to inspire and advise you. I emailed a variety of online editors and content managers and asked them the following question:

What productivity rule or habit would you be lost without? If you want to, feel free to elaborate on why this habit is your go-to tactic or why it works so well for you.

2. Plan Your Day: Always Have Something To Do

“My productivity habits were born out of necessity. When I first started blogging professionally, it was with Gawker’s Kotaku. They hired me as the editor in chief, and I already was working a full-time job as a night police reporter at one of Denver’s daily newspapers. Oh, and my wife had just had our first son.

What I discovered, as I fought to keep my head above water in those early days, is that I (and I don’t think I’m alone) waste a lot of time even when I don’t think I do.

I found my biggest waste of time was due to procrastination, and thinking about how much stuff I had to do, and what I should work on first. Here’s how I solved those problems:

I have a daily calendar on my desk. Every evening I fill the box for the next day with all of the things I want or need to accomplish that day. I take great satisfaction in crossing out those items or even clearing the list.

Whenever I’m confronted by a complex task, I break it down into lists in a second book I keep. Then I methodically work through those lists.

Always have something—no matter how small—to work on. This goes back to all of those lists I make. If I’m really having trouble starting on one thing, I move over to the next.

Don’t multitask unless you can multitask. I’m a good multitasker, but that’s because I know my limits—when doing multiple things at once makes sense and when it doesn’t. I can’t write a long feature and listen to a live-stream at the same time. I can read and edit stories, write short pieces, and sort through and answer my emails—all while walking on my treadmill (thanks to an attached desk). I’m doing that right now.

Take breaks. I’m really bad at this, but finding a balanced work and personal life ends up helping you and your business in the long run. I find that when I’m running on that perfect mix of on and off time, I’m much more productive, creative, and most importantly, happy.”

3. Keep Track Of Your Inspiration

However, the most useful hack I use is a plain notecard. I read A LOT. By writing down memorable quotes, stories, and facts from every book I read, I have a great library of information to pull from for blog posts. It makes my job easier and my writing that much more inspired.”

4. Prioritize Your Tasks By Time, ROI, And Upkeep

“One of the keys to successful website content management is prioritization. Focusing on the projects that are most timely, or will give us the biggest bang for our buck are always the highest priority, followed by the general content creation/editing that always needs attention on a website of our size.

With these strategies and a lot of teamwork to tackle projects quickly and effectively, we’ve built a site that’s a leader in the Mustang parts industry.”

5. Be Realistic With Your Time

“While I would by no means consider myself a productivity expert (hell, most of the time I feel like I’m sprinting with a blindfold on) one thing that has become very important to me lately is to be realistic about how much time each task is going to take.

By limiting my to-do list each day and allotting extra time for each task I’m more likely to get through everything that is urgent and end up feeling more accomplished at the end of the day. In turn, I sleep better, feel more relaxed, and have more time to read, write for pleasure, and be more creative in general.

It’s no get-up-at-4am-and-write tip but I feel like perceived productivity can be more important than actual productivity for both your personal and professional life.”

6. Add Your Tasks On A Calendar

“As an editorial manager, it’s easy for my time to get consumed with little tasks involved with running ReadWrite. So when I really need to buckle down and get a story written or edited, I put it on my calendar.

This blocks off the time and prevents others from booking meetings, but it also reminds me of the commitment I’ve made to get something done.

If you don’t have enough time on your calendar, then you’ve got a problem—and this will force you to reschedule or rethink your other commitments. Either way, you’ve got a realistic path to getting everything you want to do done.”

7. Do The Right Things At The Right Time By Understanding Your Energy

“I swear by energy management! Productivity books, blog posts, articles, and experts talk about the importance of time management. And yes, while managing your time effectively is important, for me, it has really come down to energy management.

Energy management means maximizing your energy and the times of the day you’re most alert and creative to get your most pressing work done. It means prioritizing your day based on when your body and mind work best.

For example, I do my very best creative thinking and writing very early in the morning. That’s why I wake up at 5 a.m. each day to work on writing projects, blog posts, and editing. I try to avoid answering emails at this time because I like to use the couple of hours when I have the most energy to focus on my most pressing projects.

I find myself in a creative lull in the mid-late afternoon. Because I know that my body and mind are often worn out by 3 p.m., I try to schedule meetings or phone calls around this time. These activities force me to stay alert by interacting with others.

I get another burst of energy in the evening and this is usually when I’ll respond to emails, manage Muck Rack’s editorial calendar and format posts for publication.

Energy management has revolutionized the way I work and get things done—it feels like I’m adding hours to my day, when really, I’m just maximizing the times of the day I personally can get my best work done.”

8. If Tech Isn’t Always For You, Go Old School

“I’d be lost without my to-do lists and schedules. Fancy software, apps, and documents have never worked for me.

I use a straight up, old school notepad file, break everything down into steps that I can accomplish within a few hours each, and plan at least a week ahead. That way I can fool myself into thinking I’m never more than an hour or two away from a break, even if I don’t necessarily take those breaks.

If I don’t get to everything in a day, I can just shuffle a piece of a task to a later day or a weekend. It’s all psychological trickery, because my brain is stupid and I am constantly messing with that dumb sucker.”

9. If I Do One Thing Today, It Will Be…

“As a content marketer working with various clients on a day to day basis, setting daily goals to help boost my productivity is key. Daily goals allow me to keep away from distractions and focus on what’s really important.”

10. Plan Ahead, Use Your Free Time, And Balance Work And Play

“First, every night before bed, I scan my personal and work email accounts. I reply to those that make take me no more than 1 minute, I forward the others to one account (which is normally my work email account unless its NSFW, which almost never happens), and I’ll know to answer those as soon as I get in to work in the morning.

When I arrive at work, unless I have an appointment or meeting, I am able to sort through and answer those emails that require a bit more time. This is normally the first 20–30 minutes of my work day, while everyone else is applying makeup, getting coffee, and etc. It’s my bit of free time to organize my day and email accounts.

Also, I really take my commute seriously. Those 20–35 minutes on the subway can make or break my day. I almost always download CNN or NPR to catch up on my news before the Wi-Fi signal goes out on the train, so I can stay abreast of the day’s happenings.

Then, if I have a story due I might draft an outline, write an intro to a story…right into the notes section of my iPhone. Alternatively, if I’ve just interviewed a subject, I’ll transcribe the chat while on the subway. I’ll just put on my headphones and type away into my notes app, then email it to myself so I can clean it up on a desktop. This would just be time wasted, so why not do something that will improve the quality of your workday?

Furthermore, I think it’s very important to keep an actual notebook on your desk. I jot down random thoughts during the day. Flesh out concepts. It’s great to not just read or type, but visualize an idea. There is something about actual ink to paper that makes an idea seem more permanent.

Lastly, I use that same notebook to make my daily to-do list. I start by drawing a line down the middle of the page, one side designated to personal tasks, the other work-related. I take the time to prioritize in my head before writing it down and number each task from 1 and up based on priority. I check them off as I go.

I make sure that my personal and work tasks are pretty much even. If you neglect your ‘real’ life, you’ll never create work/life balance, so I even put things on my personal task list like…..get new chicken recipe, schedule a nail appointment.

Again, it’s about writing it, visualizing and making it a concrete goal, just as you do for work.”

11. Define How You’ll Do Something Before Diving In

“Having a defined process is my number one productivity hack. Before you start anything, you should always first come up with a standardized process. Whether it’s how you draft a certain type of post or how you prepare the layout and creative, the process is king.

When you don’t have a standardized process, you end up burning creative cycles on the mundane. Protect your creative energy. You only get so much of it each day.”

12. Tackle The Small Stuff First

“I always start my day with a list, which invariably grows as the day progresses. I use a pen and paper. I’ve tried plenty of apps, none of which worked for me.

I’ve developed a shorthand for prioritizing tasks based on urgency and complexity, and except when something requires immediate attention, I tackle the shortest tasks first. It’s a great motivator to focus not just on what you have to do, but on what you’ve already achieved.”

For me, it’s all about time blocking and planning ahead. Writing requires total concentration on my part, so I block out times, and sometimes entire days where I know it’s just about the content. Email gets first priority, but it gets turned into a list of to-dos so that I can get it off my mind and focus. Then, writing usually starts with a list of content by priority, and my deadline is always Friday. That way, content is always ready a week ahead of time, and I’m not distracted during the week by the stress of any last minute content deadlines. You can’t be productive when you’re freaking out! :)

Thanks so much for reading! I definitely agree that you can’t be productive when you’re freaking out, and I love the idea of finishing everything a week ahead of time. For me, email is probably my biggest distraction so I really like your suggestion about turning emails into a list of to-dos. Great tip!

Thanks so much, Jess! The team at CoSchedule did a pretty sweet job with the layout too. =) I’m glad you found some new productivity tips to try out; you’ll have to let me know which ones work best for you. Thanks again for participating in this!

Actually, I’ll look at my day every morning, and literally lay out what I should be doing for the entire day. That way, I can realistically judge how much time a task should take to complete.

When I take longer to do something, then I’ve either learned that I need to give myself more time to do the same thing next week, or I know I got distracted. Either way, it helps me stay productive because I know how much time I should spend on something so that I can move on to the next thing (or I’ll stay late and knock out what I didn’t quite get done).

Like you, I also keep a list of the high-level things I really need to get done for the week. That list tends to grow throughout the week since I add things we should really be doing to it constantly.

I look at that list in the mornings before my day really starts and take about 15 minutes to pick the priority projects from it. If something’s too big, I do break it down into smaller tasks—more obtainable tasks like some of these blog editors do—then I dive in knocking one thing off the list at a time.

I really like the idea of prioritizing tasks by ROI. I definitely need to work on that myself better. Especially when you work in marketing.

stéphanie rault

I take away the following : you should make lists and combine them. I always have different lists for different projects : blogging, work, personal, volunteer….. And then I start on one thing and forget that some items on other lists are actually more urgent.

I love that a few editors mention combining personal and work/blog lists… it makes so much sense!

And I’m all for the notebook and pen!

Mark – Shotkit

Some really awesome tips there! Thank you Kayla!

Robert’s advice resonated the most with me. Sometimes the tech we use to try and make our lives easier ends up complicating things instead.

I agree with having an old fashioned pen and paper todo list. It’s a great sense of satisfaction (and motivation) when at the end of the day you can see exactly what you’ve accomplished.

Finding that time of day where your brain is at its peak is also very important to me. This is obviously connected to a healthy lifestyle of eating and exercising. What you put into your body for lunch can make or break your afternoon productivity. Too many carbs and you’ll be snoozing!

CoSchedule has been a god send for my productivity and planning. I love being able to visualise my social media strategy, and see where the gaps are. I take it as a challenge to fill every available calendar spot with some worthwhile content.

After trying countless apps and methods, I’ve found that Basecamp works for me. I use it for our editorial calendar and also general to-dos, which can be easily categorized. So I can get an instant overview of what I need to do, and when it needs to be done by.